STINSON: TFC's glory days a distant memory

At least Toronto fans have a lot of experience by now with beloved sports figures departing in an unpleasant and dispiriting way.

After the Blue Jays shed themselves of the various heroes of their playoff teams, and the Raptors cut loose their best-ever coach and the leading scorer in franchise history, it has fallen to Toronto FC to execute what seems on its face like even a colder move: The sale of Sebastian Giovinco, the impossibly wee striker who was merely the best player in the history of the team, to a club in Saudi Arabia, of all places.

It seems colder, that is, because soccer is the most ruthless of sports. Giovinco may be a legend in Toronto, the gifted Italian who could place a free kick in the top corner from 30 yards out like he was taking it from the penalty spot, the guy who more than any one player erased 10 years of abject futility from TFC and turned it into a record-setting championship club, but to the rest of the soccer world he is just an undersized 32-year-old who still expected world-class wages.

TFC fans who are flummoxed by the idea that Giovinco, with all of the skill they have witnessed from his feet, would end up sold for a mere pittance — reports suggest less than $3 million — should take note of the country that is his destination. With the player available to teams all over the world, it is not a coincidence that the one that stepped up to pay him something close to the US$7 million he has made annually in Toronto plays in the one place on the planet where no one cares about budgets. What’s a massive salary for an aging striker when you have seemingly bottomless oil-driven wealth? Even the exorbitant cable and mobile fees charged by Bell and Rogers aren’t enough for MLSE to compete with that.

Not everyone who supports TFC will see it that way, a view that will be encouraged by the Instagram blast from Giovinco himself, in which he posted that he “wanted it to end differently,” that “management prefers to focus on things other than the pure desire to win,” all while disputing the notion that he left for a more lucrative deal elsewhere.

TFC president Bill Manning told The Canadian Press on Thursday that Giovinco’s agent had said the player would not accept a pay cut, and accused the man who scored 83 goals for TFC of “lashing out” at his former team. Perhaps attitudes on both sides will soften, but at present we are not headed for a warm “Welcome Back Seba” night at BMO Field sometime in the near future.

The remarkable thing about all this is how quickly things have gone sideways for the club that was being held up as a model MLS franchise less than a year ago. After that MLS Cup win in 2017, Toronto FC followed up with a run to the CONCACAF Champions League finals last spring, beating some iconic Mexican clubs along the way and setting a new standard for MLS teams in that competition. Then the whole season fell apart, due largely to injuries and fatigue from all those early forays to Mexico, and when it was over it was a fairly grim honeymoon, a ninth-place finish in the Eastern Conference and more goals conceded than scored. Then the main architect of those teams, general manager Tim Bezbatchenko, left to take over his hometown team in Columbus, playmaker Victor Vasquez was sold to a club in Qatar — that oil money again — and now Giovinco departs.

Of the dazzling goal that won TFC the league title on that chilly night at BMO Field two Decembers ago, Vasquez to Giovinco to Jozy Altidore for the finish, only the burly American remains, and he has long been rumoured to be eyeing a move to Europe.

Toronto FC Sebastian Giovinco celebrates the team’s first goal during 1st half MLS action against Orlando City Soccer Club at BMO Field in Toronto, Ont. on Wednesday May 3, 2017. Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

Suddenly, Toronto heads back into the CONCACAF cauldron next month with a paucity of attacking talent up front, and a team that once seemed likely to improve its league form in 2019 just because things couldn’t go as poorly as they did in 2018 is back to having serious questions about whether whatever moves they make will work out. It is easy for Manning and new GM Ali Curtis to say they are confident the club will find new attackers to fill the slots opened up by the recent departures, but the history of TFC, until quite recently, was one of flashy signings and acquisitions that ended in embarrassment.

The transformation of the club from utter shambles to envy of the league, one that coincided with the arrival of the little Italian, was also due in large part to the support of a fan base that didn’t flee the club when, really, it ought to have done so. But those fans stuck around, and were rewarded, and TFC added thousands of seats to the stadium because so many people wanted to be a part of it.

That sense of glee around the club has evaporated in an awful hurry, and for the sea of people who seemed to be wearing a Giovinco jersey on any given night, there wasn’t even the chance for a proper send off.

Viewed dispassionately, Toronto FC’s decisions are justifiable. It will be interesting to see how many fans manage to view them this way. This team was uniquely bad enough for so long that its fans seemed to have unlocked a new level of loyalty. But this is certainly one way to test it.

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